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Overview

No CD can adequately encapsulate the experience of a Barbara Hannigan performance, which must be seen as well as heard in order to appreciate the range of her talents. An avant-garde vocalist of virtuosic brilliance and a conductor of exceptional ability, Hannigan is also a theatrical phenomenon, known to appear on-stage as a Stasi official in dominatrix gear, or as a gum-popping schoolgirl, as in her concert performances of György Ligeti's "Mysteries of the Macabre." She has also won acclaim for her operatic roles in George Benjamin's "Written on Skin," and Alban Berg's "Lulu," where she has presented her characters with terrifying psychological depth. Her 2017 release on Alpha, Crazy Girl Crazy, may serve as an introduction for listeners who have yet to hear or see her perform, and the album and the accompanying DVD, Music Is Music, present Hannigan as effectively as possible in digital media. Yet for all the extended techniques she executes to perfection in Luciano Berio's "Sequenza III," and for the powerful lyricism and violence of her interpretation of Berg's "Lulu Suite," in which she sings and conducts the Ensemble Ludwig, Hannigan also reveals an attractive knack for Broadway standards in the "Girl Crazy Suite," a fresh arrangement of songs by George Gershwin. Hannigan is successful in all the genres she chooses because her performances are much more than an occasion for showing off, which in her case would be justifiable merely because of her dazzling vocal pyrotechnics and entertaining stage antics. Hannigan is possessed by her music, and she is convincing because she is absolutely committed to putting her voice, body, and personality on the line, with the fearlessness of a tightrope walker. This recording has astonishing clarity and close-up sound, giving Hannigan credible presence and audiophiles a genuine treat.

French contralto Delphine Galou has gained attention in opera performances and now with this debut
recital album, covers a variety of Italian Baroque music. Much of it is sacred in one way or another, making the biker jacket on the ...

Nelson Goerner is most closely associated with the piano music of Frédéric Chopin, but his
recital repertoire also includes works by Ludwig van Beethoven, even though this 2015 CD from Alpha Classics is the first evidence of that fact in ...

The four Benjamin Britten pieces offered here were recorded on three different occasions at the
Snape Maltings concert hall in Britain's Suffolk region, but Linn's engineers have no trouble in welding the performances together into a sonic whole. And what ...

This marks the first release with Robin Ticciati leading the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, and
it makes the requisite splash. There's a world premiere: even if you're not on board with the trend of enlarging the repertory through arrangements of ...

Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner isn't known for French music, although he does perform Debussy's L'Isle
Joyeuse in recital sometimes. This beautifully recorded release from the Linn label, however, gives the lie to the idea that pianists necessarily have a specialty, ...

For this 2017 release from Alpha Classics, Krzysztof Urbanski and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra give
exciting, if slightly rough-edged, performances of Antonín Dvorák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World, and the late tone poem A Hero's ...

Le Théâtre Musical de Telemann may not be the most obvious title for an album
of Baroque chamber suites, but it should not be taken in the sense of a stage work. Instead, the program of this 2016 release from ...